Pope, John Rackett, and the Slave Trade

Within the last decade, a number of studies have considered how slavery features in the work of Alexander Pope. Valuable though such accounts have been to our critical understanding, a complementary chapter of Pope's life has been neglected. John Rackett, the poet's nephew, was for many years an officer in Britain's merchant marine. This article elaborates on Pope's correspondence and conversation to show both that Rackett was an active participant in the slave trade and that the poet himself moved in slaving circles. Literary history finally affords a new perspective on the interdependent economies of the English Atlantic world.